Women, Hear Them Roar, With Moments Too Large to Ignore

NancyPelosi -- first female speaker of the House! Hillary Rodham Clinton -- first woman who maybe, kinda, has a chance of getting elected U.S. president! We haven't been so excited since . . . well, since Katie Couric became the first female solo anchor of a major American network evening newscast!Let's look back at some of our sister pioneers.

Dawn of Time: Eve, first woman to hear, "I told you so."

35 B.C.: Livia, wife of Augustus, first Roman woman allowed to handle her own money.

1872: Victoria Woodhull, first woman to run for president of the United States.

1899: Martha Place, first woman to die in the electric chair.

1901: Annie Edson Taylor, first person to survive trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1952: Christine Jorgensen, first woman with an unassailable reason to shop for new clothes.3

1958: Coya Knutson, first female member of Congress whose relationship wrecked her career, or vice versa.4

1964: Margaret Chase Smith, first woman to have her name placed in nomination for president at a major party convention.5

1969: Golda Meir, Israel, world's first female prime minister.

1970: Diane Crump, first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby.

1974: Isabel Peron, Argentina, world's first female president.

1977: Michelle Triola, first to successfully sue for "palimony."6

1978: Janice Dickinson, world's first female supermodel.7

1980: Sherry Lansing, first female head of a major movie studio.

1981: Sandra Day O'Connor, first female Supreme Court justice.

1997: Madeleine Albright, first female secretary of state.

2006: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia, first woman elected head of an African nation, and Michelle Bachelet, first female president of Chile.8

1 Dies before she can say "nyah, nyah" to Larry Summers.

2 Eighty years later, "separate but equal" still reigns in showbiz awards.

3 After ex-GI George Jorgensen got the world's first (highly publicized) sex change.

4 An opponent enlisted her drunk husband to write a "Coya, come home" letter. She lost, she went home to Minnesota, she divorced him.

5 She lost.

6 Won thousands from tough-guy actor Lee Marvin, her longtime live-in boyfriend, after he dumped her.

SURREAL ESTATE

Buyer: Robert and Elena Allbritton

Seller: Herb and Patrice Miller

Price:$20 million-plus.

Details: Developer Miller spent $25 million turning the 1810 Bowie-Sevier house at Georgetown's 31st and Q streets (8 BR, 10 baths, 28,000 square feet) into a state-of-the-art mansion. Months after he put it on the market for $28 mil, a young British political activist was slain during a mugging in the home's driveway. Now it's been purchased -- for what may be a record price for a single-family Washington home -- by the Allbrittons: She's a dermatologist; he was the second-generation chairman of Riggs Bank before it was sold after a money-laundering scandal, and now, as a media entrepreneur, he's launching the Web-based Politico journal this week.

Washington foodies who love the Inn at Little Washington can breathe a big sigh of relief. The split between the owners, Patrick O'Connell and Reinhardt Lynch, in September was settled amicably Friday. O'Connell bought Lynch's 50 percent interest and is now sole owner of the inn, the company and all of the jointly owned properties, which means he basically owns the entire Virginia town.

"I'm excited -- and enormously relieved," said O'Connell. "This is the best thing that could have happened for the business's future." O'Connell (who declined to disclose the terms of the agreement) said this will allow him to evolve the award-winning restaurant "without any alteration or change in it's essential character." He already has two expansion projects in the works: A luxury guesthouse and a Presidential Suite, which will open this spring.

No word on what Lynch plans to do next. Says O'Connell: "I think each of us wishes the other the best."